Hoping this comes to ATT in some variant soon. Wish it had a better battery like 2200mAH at least and a microSD slot. I like the built in headphone amp very cool. I use the Filo amp coming out of my One X and it sounds great, but without the amp it sounds very good anyway.Reply

This could be a great phone if the battery doesn't end up being terrible. I don't see how they're going to manage it, but that's the one thing that could be the downfall of this phone. Otherwise, everything is pretty perfect. (minus wanting a 4.5 inch flagship android - does anybody know of one? I can't seem to find anything under 4.7)Reply

You can get 1080p if you're willing to spend more than $600, probably closer to $700 or more depending on the rest of the specs. Or, don't get hosed on the upgrade premium and replace the screen yourself if you're a DIY type. That price, coincidentally, is in the ballpark of what a high end phone like that HTC costs unsubsudized.

All that said I agree whole-heartedly with your sentiment. 1366x768 is awful to look at on a 15" laptop. Compounding it is the trend to use the worst quality screens imaginable. I know because I put up with it for months and months until I bought a 1080p replacement screen. My lesson was learned. Reply

A 15" at 1366x768 or 1920x1080 is ... exactly the same size and probably the same amount of materials. As we can see, it's obviously not hard to get higher ppi, since they have 3-4x the ppi on this 5" screen.Reply

I imagine Verizon passed on a One variant in order to score this? I love my EVO LTE's display, but I'm not sure I'd ever wanna go any larger... In fact, given the option of a 16:9 720p 4.3" I'd probably opt for a slight downsize. 5" & 1080p seems like total overkill, specially without any extra functionality like the Note.

Wonder who makes the display though and why Samsung wasn't able to source it for the Note 2... I guess they'll probably sell a lot more Note 2's worldwide so logistics might've been the issue.

The headphone amp part is curious, the S4 One/EVO phones are already amongst the best sounding out there (though apparently the Tegra 3 versions are pretty mediocre)... At the very least it should be a better step than gimmicks like the Beats EQ.Reply

I can see a lot of reasons for not choosing it for the Note 2, to make use of it needs a beefier GPU and in turn more power as well as the screen itself possibly using more power, on the Note power consumption is already an issue.

More simply though I have to wonder if it's worth having such an ultra high resolution display? I've always been a fan of high resolution displays but they seem to be getting into more of a spec war, 1080p seems great on an 11in screen and I've been happy with 1280x720 on the Note 1, I can't see the big jump in resolution being that much of an advantage.

It would make sense for me. I have been looking for a pocketable device to read PDF documents in portrait mode. I have tried it in note 2 and you cannot, as 720 PX width smudges the fonts,which at that size is unreadable, same for websites. If I have to go to landscape mode to be able to read these pages, why would I need a 5 inch phone when a 4.5 inch phone would be sufficient. So if a phone is 5 inchs or more it has got to have at least a 1000px across the shorter side.

Not really, if you pay $500 for a display you might get a very nice 1920x1200 24" IPS but relative dpi still blows compared to this phone. The problem's twofold tho, little demand for better desktop displays (since the desktop is more of a niche every year: and software needs to be improved and optimized with better dpi scaling in mind.Reply

I agree on principle but not everybody is watching 8GB 1080p mkvs on the phone.

Also I suppose that 1080p is the "ultimate" goal for the manufacturers and they will stay a while at that resolution, considered today the de facto standard along with the dreadful 1366 x 768. I wouldn't mind to have all my devices (from 4" to 24") at 1080p, until 4k will be on larger screens...Reply

Great display, great audio - and then they leave out a key piece of the media interface. Is there some conspiracy of stupidity in the smartphone makers these days? Anything positioned to be more than a basic phone needs a good way to swap files in and out. That's exactly what micro-SD provides.

It's one thing for a company to omit SD precisely because they want to lock you into their media services. But it makes no sense for HTC / Verizon.

And the unreplaceable battery... In my limited experience these things only last about two years. What are you supposed to do then? Throw the phone away? As with the SD, I'd rather pay more and get the essentials. What can these two things add? $50? Gladly.Reply

This phone is going to be worthless in a year when 4k resolutions become mainstream. What's the point of getting a phone like this now when you won't be able to watch Avatar 3D at 4K resolution on it?Reply

Great review. I'm torn between this phone and the Samsung Galaxy SIII. I'm on contract with AT&T (like the 4GLTE) and my next phone is a toss-up since it seems to have a wide selection. I have a graphics design firm in New York and my smartphone is becoming like a third arm since the data speeds are so good.Reply